In This Together: Building Resilience When Your Partner Has Cancer

41. Empowered Caregiving - Create Boundaries

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 41

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As caregivers, we often feel like we’re living in a constant state of overwhelm. On Day 5 of the Empowered Caregiving Challenge, I talked about one of the biggest reasons for this: caregiving is an undefined role. It pulls us in so many directions—physical tasks, emotional support, logistics, medical decisions—without clear boundaries or guidelines. It’s like trying to bowl on a wide-open floor with pins scattered everywhere. How do you aim? How do you succeed?

For me, the early days of caregiving were all about adding more to my to-do list, thinking I just needed to push harder. 
That worked—until it didn’t. 

I learned that caregiving requires more than physical energy; it takes mental, emotional, and even spiritual energy. Without clear priorities or boundaries, we end up reacting to every demand and questioning if we’re doing anything well.

The solution lies in defining the role for ourselves. Who do you want to be as a caregiver? What values are most important to you right now?
 
When you take time to clarify these, you create lanes for yourself, making it easier to focus on what matters most and feel successful, even in challenging moments.

As a Resiliency Coach for people who are caregiving for their partner, I'm here to support YOU, the caregiver. Learn more about my work at www.coachmarika.com.

Marika Humphreys:

Hello and welcome to day five of the Empowered Caregiving Challenge. Today is the final part in a five-part series on becoming more empowered as a caregiver. I'm Marika Humphries. I'm a resiliency coach for people who are caring for their partner, and today I'm talking about the importance of creating boundaries for yourself.

Marika Humphreys:

Now, a big reason that you may feel overwhelmed as a caregiver and not in control of your life or in certain parts of your caregiving journey is because caregiving is broad and it encompasses many things. Sometimes you have physical tasks, like picking up medication or taking your partner to the doctor. You may do certain medical procedures for them, like give them injections or change bedding or clothing or a number of other things, but you're also likely giving emotional support, encouraging them, being patient when they're upset or irritable, being strong, being that rock right, someone they can rely on. You're probably the one that deals with the family dynamics, and I would imagine that many of you are also helping to make medical decisions and solve problems, take care of logistics, call insurance providers, all of those sorts of things that are just the tasks, the kind of mental tasks that go along with caregiving, and then there's any number of things that can come up unexpectedly. So the role of a caregiver is not defined and it encompasses many areas and it requires mental, emotional, physical and spiritual energy to take care of all those areas. So it is no wonder that caregivers feel overwhelmed. So if you've been feeling overwhelmed, take a minute and give yourself some grace here, because this is a broad role and differs for many people and also differs depending on who you're caring for. I speak primarily to people who are caring for their partner, but it could be very different depending on who you're caring for. So it's a role you're in, but it's also a role that lacks boundaries and because of that, caregivers get caught up in just reacting to the daily demands without pausing to consider what's most important or what they have the capacity to do. So when we're serving in a role that is undefined, that places demands on us in all different areas where there are really no lanes to speak of, it can feel very disempowering.

Marika Humphreys:

One of the analogies I thought about when trying to describe this that came up for me was bowling, because when you go bowling, there's a lane and there's pins at the end and the goal is very clear. You take this ball, you roll it down the lane and you try to hit the pins, and the lane is defined by the gutters on either side, so it's a clearly defined lane. And if you've ever been to a bowling alley, there's many lanes, right, you just have one. Well, what if you were instead at a bowling alley but instead of one lane with a gutter on either side, you had a wide open floor and the pins were just that you were supposed to knock down, were just spread out all over the place. How would you aim? How would you feel successful? What are the boundaries? That's what caregiving can feel like Going bowling where there is no lane and there's no gutters and the pins are all spread out. So, without defining what's important and creating boundaries around that, it's no wonder that often caregivers end up trying to do kind of everything that just falls on their plate and often they feel like they're not measuring up in any one area.

Marika Humphreys:

I remember for me I had. I was always feeling like I just need to put more on my list, like I should be able to handle more. That was my initial thought early on in my caregiving journey. I was a to-do list person. I still am. I still have a to-do list and I still work off of it. But at the time I approached to diagnosis of cancer that my husband had and all the things that entailed in the doctor's visits and the research that we started doing and figuring out insurance and kind of all the things my started doing and figuring out insurance and kind of all the things. My approach was I just put more things on my to-do list and that worked for a while until I just started getting tired. You can't do that endlessly, but that was my initial thought, is I just need to do more. So I talked about this a little bit in yesterday's but I totally did not have a good appreciation for that.

Marika Humphreys:

It's not just physical tasks but there's mental energy and emotional energy and spiritual energy that all go into caregiving and so that's without clearly defined we just try to do everything and we feel very often unsuccessful in that, or questioning how successful we're being, or questioning if we're doing the right thing. So without a clearly defined purpose, you will also tend to be more reactive Because again, when the pins are just everywhere, you're just going to try and hit the closest one. That's what we do. What's the nearest pin to me? Let me just shoot for that one Instead of making more deliberate or intentional choices and when we don't have a clear view or have made clear decisions about what's important to us in this role or what's most important to our partner, everything becomes important, which means nothing's important. So think about that for a minute. When everything's important, it means that nothing is, because we're not distinguishing between things. We're treating everything the same and in reality, if we stop for a minute and think, that's almost never true. There are always things that are more important than other things. But it takes thought and intention to make that distinction.

Marika Humphreys:

Why haven't we done this for our role as a caregiver? And I'm just asking the question here I didn't think to do this, but now it's one of the core things I teach, because we need to put boundaries around this seemingly endless role, boundaries for ourselves, so that we can focus on the things that are most important. So how do you create a lane in a role that is, by nature, undefined? Nobody has a job description for you as a caregiver. Wouldn't it be great if they did Like. That would solve so many problems? So the answer to feeling more empowered in this area to define this role for ourselves. So I titled this topic today creating boundaries. But what we're really doing is defining this role. We're creating boundaries around the role and that's and deciding what's most important to us and who we want to be in this part of our life. That is what I mean by creating boundaries. What I am not talking about is just simply making a big list of tasks and putting boundaries around it, like these are all the things that I'm going to do, and these are all the things that I'm going to do, and these are all the things that I'm absolutely not going to do. And sometimes I do think we also confuse the word boundaries with this idea that we can somehow control other people by creating boundaries about what we will and won't accept, behavior we will and won't accept. So those are not what I'm referring to here. What I am referring to is creating boundaries around the role of a caregiver, and doing that by thinking about what's important and what you value, and I should mention as well what are your limitations.

Marika Humphreys:

We enter into caregiving many of us. It is unlike a job where we make a conscious decision and apply and we know what the job requirements are. That's not what caregiving. That's not how caregiving happens for people. Usually. It's something that we essentially fall into Rare. Rarely is it expected, unless you're a professional caregiver, which there are the people that do that job, but then there's boundaries around it. But for those of us that are caring for our partner, our spouse, a family member, there are no boundaries around that. So guess what? We need to make that for ourselves. And, just like you would, when you look at a job description, you think about what time do I have? What are my constraints? So I want to encourage you.

Marika Humphreys:

One of the ways to become more empowered is to start with thinking about and define for yourself who do you want to be as a caregiver? When we define the who, who are we being, then the actions and decisions will come from that place. Okay, so it's kind of a top down approach or like. Actually I'm rereading the seven habits of highly effective people Fantastic book. I read it years ago. It had a huge impact on me then, but I'm rereading it now and I'm just looking at it really more, thinking about my clients now as I read it again. But it's such good, it's such a foundational work for anybody looking at personal growth.

Marika Humphreys:

So, and he talks about taking the inside out approach, starting with ourselves. So that's what I also mean when I think about creating role for yourself. Who do you want to be as a caregiver? Start from the inside. Who do you want to be? And that requires that you do a few things first. It requires that you recognize not everything is important, so you do have to make some choices about what is important. And it also means that your role as a caregiver means you only have control over yourself and who you're being.

Marika Humphreys:

So if your partner is someone that's difficult to care for or easy to care for, like that's, you can't control that. You can't control how they are. Being the person you're caring for, you can only control how you're being. So you want to start from you. Who do you want to be, regardless of how they are? That's a hard. That can be a hard one, especially if this is your spouse. Right? I have many clients who their spouse. Especially if their spouse is dealing with an illness like cancer, for example, that is a hard thing to deal with and they go through a lot and sometimes they're challenging. They're difficult people to care for. Their spouse maybe is angry or kind of volatile or emotional or withdrawn, and that can be challenging to care for someone like that, however, it doesn't matter, because you still get to decide who you want to be regardless.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, so the way to do that is to start with thinking about what are your values, and what are your values right now. I have done a whole podcast episode on defining your role as a caregiver, so you can go listen to that to go into this process a little more in detail. But here I just want to encourage you to think about what are my values, what's most important to me right now, like given this time in my life, and what are my constraints. What energy do I have to bring to this? Some people are working full-time, some people are raising kids I was doing both when I was caregiving. Other people have more time or perhaps more financial resources. So we all come to the role of caregiving with different constraints on our time and our energy and our capacity to give, and it is likely, if you're in the caregiving role for any length of time, that will fluctuate as well. So this is a role that you have to relook at at least probably at least a couple of times a year, maybe more, because your ability, what you bring to it, will change and your values around what's important will change.

Marika Humphreys:

I talk about this a little bit when I think of I want you to think about. Caregiving often has different stages and when we're in it it's hard to see those stages, but because I coach people on different stages and I've been through them myself. There are different stages and often what we find in need is important does depend on the stage that we're in or the stage of health that our loved one is in. So think about what's important to you and who you want to be, and then you define the role for yourself. And I don't mean the specifics. You don't really have to get detailed like I'm going to do these things and these things and not these things. It's more of a broad mission statement might be a better way to think about it. What are the big values that I want to have? Who do I want to be? Do I want to be someone who's patient and present and who's an advocate? And for me, when I thought about this, it was believing in my partner's strength, regardless of how he felt about himself.

Marika Humphreys:

Broad kind of goals, mission goals around this role, and what that does is when you give some thought to this and spend some time. Give some thought to this and spend some time. It allows you to have an anchor when things are rocky, when there are pins like again all over the floor. It allows you to focus on the pins that are most important. You can't distinguish that if you haven't created some lanes for yourself. So gives you an anchor when you're faced with conflicting demands, which we often are in caregiving. You can use your mission statement or your caregiver role, as you've defined it, to help decide between conflicting priorities. Sometimes one may have to take precedence over the other or, like I also advocate, what is the win-win here? Both of these are important to me. How can I find a way to satisfy both of them? And it lets you also feel successful in a role that sometimes can feel very thankless. So we have to provide that pat on the back for ourselves a lot of times, and we should. So the way to do that is to know what you consider success, and maybe that is staying patient, no matter what.

Marika Humphreys:

For a couple of my clients, it's important to them to be strong for their in both cases it's their husband and they want to be strong. They don't want to show, they don't want to break down. Well, that's a hard one, when lots of times there's lots of emotions come up. But how do they do that They've defined for themselves. This is important to me because this is a way that my husband looks to me for strength, and if he sees me broken down, it's harder for him. So if that's something that you decide is important for you to uphold, define that and then you can go to work. Okay, so if I want to be strong for my husband, how do I get the support I need in order to be strong during those times? And obviously they're both getting coaching. So it lets you think more strategically in order to be successful. If you want to have success in one area, you have to figure out what do I need to do that? Sometimes it's like I need to have a good night's sleep. That's always the case for me. I know in order to be at my best, I have to sleep well. So it lets you have clear targets for success and it lets you think more strategically about how to be successful, but only when you've defined for yourself what success looks like.

Marika Humphreys:

I always give questions to think about, and so the questions today are fairly simple ones. The first one is what are my top five values right now and think specific to your relationship when you think about the values. So what values typically? If it's your partner that you're caring for, what are the values in this relationship right now? Top five? Second question what do I want my purpose to be as a caregiver, I would say come up with three to five sentences, no more than that, or not much more than that.

Marika Humphreys:

You want to keep it brief. The big things Remember we're making decisions about what's most important. And then how can I honor my values when things feel overwhelming? You might think about that in advance. One good answer to that is I'm going to look for the win-win first right and just kind of brainstorm how do I honor these values? What do I need to give up? That might be another question you could add to that. What do I need to give up or let go of in order to focus on the things that I've decided are most important? Often it's what we need to get rid of. That helps us focus instead on what is most important.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, I run through this process in my program. When you work with me as a with my one-on-one coaching program, I run you, take you through this process to define the role of caregiver for yourself and we figure out what is most important to you and make sure that your role is constrained to things that are within your control, because often, as caregivers, we have these lofty ideas, but it involves other people that we can't control. So it's really important that your role is based on you, an inside out approach, right who you want to be, how you are going to show up each day in this capacity as a caregiver. Your role needs to be limited to that. And then each week, we talk about the challenges that come up, and sometimes it means refining your role or sometimes it means getting more clarity and working through those challenges. So that's the benefit of having coaching.

Marika Humphreys:

Support is there will be things that challenge this and make this hard, and sometimes it's not an easy decision, but going through the process of even thinking about it will be helpful and you will feel more empowered in the process. So if you are ready to define this role for yourself and you'd like support in that process, or you'd like support in the caregiving journey, go to my website. You can set up a consultation with me and we will get started. Okay, so that is what I've got for you today and the all five parts of the series I will put on my podcast, so if you've missed any one of them, you can go back and listen to the past podcast episodes. All right, everybody. Bye-bye.